How are you today, Tom?
by HoodedSpellcaster
Summary: Mrs Cole worked in Wool's Orphanage almost for half a century but only for one child she had ever tried to be a mother. For Parental Figure Challenge.
1. Chapter 1 New Year's Eve

This is my entry for Savita's _Parental Figure Challenge_ on Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum.

A/N: This is a multichapter story about Tom Riddle's childhood in the muggle orphanage. All chapters are told in Mrs Cole's POV. The list of prompts used will be posted in the last chapter. Thank you.

* * *

Chapter 1. New Year's Eve

May 1998, London, Sheltered Home for the Aged.

Mrs Cole sat on the wooden rocking chair, wrapped inside of a worn blanket, and looked outside from the room's window. It was rather odd weather for May; snowflakes in the spring. Mrs Cole shook her head lightly and huffed.

"How odd", she said. She was getting old, almost ninety years of age and she was still standing on her own feet but in the last fifty years she hadn't seen such reversal in the weather.

But as it was certainly snowing, she couldn't help but remember things, things that had happened a very long time ago.

"Like it would have happened just yesterday…"

* * *

New Year's Eve of the year 1926, London, Wool's Orphanage.

"It's snowing again."

I huffed, looking out the kitchen window. The winter had been colder than in several years before and a particularly nasty blizzard raged outside the Wool's Orphanage's thin walls. I took a sip of tea and listened how the wind howled in the water pipes and the corners of the building. It was my first winter working at the orphanage. The sounds and atmosphere were still new to me. Louisa was upstairs, probably taking care of William – he had caught a rather nasty flu. Martha instead was out.

I twiddled my wedding ring – the little habit I had. Soon it would be 1927 and our third anniversary already. Oh, how I missed James. Why he had to leave this world so soon? I gave a sigh. Louisa might have needed help. I placed my empty teacup to the windowsill and gazed outside.

My heart jumped up into my throat when, through the white, I saw a woman, trudging through the storm and determinedly trying to reach the Orphanage's door. She staggered up the stairs and I hurried immediately to let her to the shelter from the storm.

I gasped in shock when I saw her from the close. The woman was freezing and shivering from the bitter cold. Her hands were ice cold and her chapped lips turning blue. The lank dark hair fell in limps to her tiny shoulders. She couldn't be any older than I was – eighteen or nineteen at the most – but the years hadn't definitely been kind to her. I couldn't feel anything but pity towards the poor girl. Her eyes looked at opposite directions and had lost all the brightness there possibly could have once been.

Even her voice trembled, signalling from her poor state. She held her stomach with her shaky hands. "Please..."

She was heavily pregnant. I could see she had used all her powers to keep her unborn child inside for who knows how long. I called for Louisa and she came running to help. This was nothing new to her, and even during my time at the orphanage two other young women had gone and given birth here but neither of them had been like her – starved, malnourished even, and sickly pale, like the snow itself. She was different. Neither of them had lacked the vitality like she did.

Louisa and I had helped her to the empty room in the ground floor before Louisa had left us alone to boil some water; the woman was already ready give a birth.

The woman breathed raggedly, and her gaze wandered around the room before her eyes locked with mine. I wasn't sure what I saw in those hazy, dark orbs, but it made my heart ache.

When the labour started I gave her my hand and she held on it tightly, her grip tightening weakly with every anguished cry. I moved her messy hair away from her sweating forehead. She was in pain; I knew what it felt like. I swallowed and kept my grip of her hand.

"Just the final push!" I encouraged her.

And soon it was over. The new mother inhaled sharply but other than that, the room was eerily silent. I had expected to hear cries of the newborn baby but there was nothing but the silence and the mother's unsteady breathing. I glanced at Louisa and scooted over to see the child, expecting the worst. I gave a bemused smile.

A small child with pitch black hair was folded in a blanket. But the baby didn't let out a sound. If he hadn't looked me straight to the eye I would have said he wasn't alive at all. But he was. The aching of my heart lessened when I looked at the baby. Oh, what a New Year's miracle he was.

"Congratulations", I said and looked at the exhausted woman. "It's a boy."

The woman's face lighted up a little as she weakly reached for the baby.

"Let me look at him..." The baby was brought to her side, and for a moment she just stared at the child with an unreadable expression on her face. "My little baby ", she said quietly disbelievingly in a hoarse voice. "He's perfect, just like _you_... Why did you leave us...?" She shed few tears and turned away from the child, choking a heartbroken cry.

Something in her told me – and I bet even she knew it – she wouldn't have much time left. Louisa seemed to have noticed it, too, and she raised the child to her arms and carried him away from the room, closing the door behind her. The woman looked at me, and it wasn't a look of a person who was going to fight for survival. She had accepted her death with tear trickling eyes.

I stayed with her until she was there no more. It didn't take long; she was so weak. I didn't know her longer than those two hours but I felt her sadness.

I went to the next room where I knew Louisa had brought the baby. I watched the sleeping child. How could he be so calm, so innocent, with not a single care about the world? I stroked the dark hair gently, hoping I wouldn't wake him up.

The last words of boy's mother were still in my mind, clear, echoing as I looked at the baby.

_"I hope he looks like his papa… His name will be Tom, after his father... Marvolo, after my father... And his surname is to be Riddle... like his father's..."_

She hadn't said a word after.


	2. Chapter 2 Early Years

Chapter 2. Early Years

May 1998, London, Sheltered Home for the Aged.

The snow continued to fall and a very thin layer covered the street as could be seen from Mrs Cole's window. She rocked back and worth, humming a sweet toned song and remembering. In her memories she returned back to Wool's Orphanage where she had raised no ordinary boy.

"It had started when you were two", Mrs Cole said and continued watching the twirling snow. "You made such weird things happen, Tom." She closed her eyes and gave a deep sigh. "But the older you got, the weirder the things became. You wanted to have control, over yourself, and over the others…"

Mrs Cole opened her glazy eyes. "What did I do wrong in raising you?"

The descending snowflakes didn't grant her the answer.

"The things didn't turn to be better, nor did they turn to worse", Mrs Cole continued with a sigh. "Not until that one summer when Martha and I took you to the sea… I still can't understand what you did to them, Tom."

* * *

August 1929, London, Wool's Orphanage.

We had just had a dinner and Louisa and Martha had gone to put the children down for a nap. I had then retreated to the kitchen where the piles of dishes were waiting for someone to do the washing-up. I was drying the last ones and putting them away when I corner of my eye saw the raven-haired boy.

I held back a scream and dropped the plate, making it break into pieces. Tom stood few meters away from me. The child didn't even flinch from the sound of the breaking porcelain. I took a deep breath to recover from his sudden appearing.

"Tom, you should be sleeping." I crouched to clean up the pieces. "Did Louisa take you from the crib?"

I looked at Tom. He just shook his head a little and observed me with his wide dark eyes. I gave him a little displeased, suspicious, smile. This wasn't the first time when Tom appeared out of nowhere during the naptime. And it wasn't the all. I had paid attention on how things seemed to move from their places whenever Tom was near; I was sure of it even though I hadn't yet really seen it with my own eyes. How else would Tom get his hands on everything I place out of his reach? Of course I never said anything like that to Louisa; she wouldn't have taken me seriously.

I moved the pieces with dustpan and brush from the floor and smiled at the child. "What about I'll take you back to bed now, Tom?"

"No." Tom stared at me straight in the eye. "Please."

I didn't dare to say no to him if he didn't want to sleep. Tom had, after all, been always such a good boy. As a baby he almost never cried. He always ate everything given to him. He was so easy I wondered how it was even possible. I didn't know how I had grown up to be so attached to that little boy. It was unnatural; I didn't try so hard with the other orphans.

It was like… Tom was somehow special to me.

* * *

February 1931, London, Wool's Orphanage.

We had gotten a piano and what a delight it was to the children. Louisa, as old as she was anyway, played well. The children enjoyed listening to the music she made and sometimes, when Louisa felt energetic enough, she sung with them.

Few weeks after the piano had regularised its place in the living room, Tom yanked the hem of my skirt and stopped me to listen what he had to say. He had never liked to wait me to finish what I was doing if he needed me to listen. If I did, which had happened few times in the past, he would have retreated to his room to, most probably, sulk.

"I can't get it off my head", he said in his annoyed, little boy's tone. "That song Mrs Barton plays."

I blinked few times. "You mean _Für Elise_?" I whistled few tunes of the Beethoven's piano concerto, Louisa's favourite, and Tom nodded firmly. I chuckled and ruffled Tom's hair. "Well, it sounds like you have gotten an earworm."

He shot me a look. "I don't like it", he said. "Make it stop."

"Oh, Tom", I sighed and descended to the boy's level. "That's something I can't do."

It took couple days when Louisa attempted to play the instrument after the dinner. After the first, out of tune tones of a song the piano made a cracking sound. She barely had time to retreat from the piano before it loudly crumpled into pieces. Louisa gasped but regained her composure and turned to calm down the children. She blamed termites of the saddening fate of the instrument.

But I raked my eyes through the pairs of eyes of disappointed, sad, and shocked children before I found, from the very back of the room the pair of dark eyes I had been looking for.

Tom stood there, a small smile curling up his lips.

* * *

June 1932, London, Wool's Orphanage.

"Mrs Cole! Mrs Cole!"

I hurried upstairs after hearing the cries of children, Martha following me. Lovely old Louisa Barton had passed away in the end of the last year, and I had run the orphanage with Martha since then. It had begun to take its toll. The children – Mary, Dennis, Timothy, and Eric – had gathered the corridor and they all looked scared, shocked even. Billy, who had been hiding in the corner, instead was crying and when I asked him what was wrong he pointed at the ceiling with a shaky hand.

"It was Tom…!" he sobbed and wiped his nose to the sleeve of his sweater. "I know it was him…!"

My breath hitched when I looked upwards and found out why the children were so upset. Billy's pet rabbit was hanging from the rafters, completely motionless.

It was dead.

Martha drove the children downstairs and I went to get the ladders from the storage room to get the poor animal down. I had my suspicions that Tom may have had something to do with it. After all I had seen Tom and Billy quarrelling about something yesterday, but I couldn't explain how the rabbit had gotten to the rafters. None of the children was tall enough to reach the ceiling, not even Tom who was rather tall for his age. Even I couldn't without the ladders. I heard the stairs creak as someone went upstairs.

It was Tom. He glanced at me, not showing any kind of emotion when he saw the dead animal I was holding. He just went to his room and closed the door.

I wanted to believe Tom had nothing to do with this. How could he have?

* * *

July 1935, the Seaside Site.

Summer of the year 1935 had been nice and warm and Martha and I felt like we should give the children some sort of reward for their good behaviour. So we planned a trip, a picnic, to the seaside. I was sure that getting a fresh breeze of sea air and change for the ordinary routines would gladden them. Martha had agreed with me.

And so, in one particularly beautiful Saturday morning, we had travelled all the way to the friendly town by the sea where we would stay for the day. I let the children explore the nearby grounds but I told them to stay out the water and forbad them from going too far from the place Martha was placing their picnic supplies.

But as the time passed and the lunchtime came I became eventually worried. I looked around and I couldn't find Tom anywhere. Dennis and Amy were also missing.

For two hours Martha and I searched from the grounds nearby with no success. I was starting to panic. What if they went too close to the sea and drowned? What if they got lost? What if someone had taken them?

"There they are!" Martha exclaimed suddenly. I turned at the direction she was pointing at. The three familiar children were walking from the shore back to where we were.

Few tears of happiness trickled down my cheek. Thank goodness, they were alright.

"Tom! Amy, Dennis!" I hugged each of the children. "Where have you been?"

It was like the usually two so talkative children weren't here at all. Amy and Dennis kept mostly silent, just mumbling something about a cave once in a while, and looked like something horrible had happened; scared looks on their round faces, trembling hands. I turned to the third child; I was worried.

"Tom?" Tom didn't show any kind of trauma unlike Amy and Dennis did. "Tom, tell me what happened?"

I looked at the third child but as a response a gained only a nonchalant shrug with the smallest of smiles and few words I didn't truly believe in the fullest of matter.

"We were just exploring in the cave nearby."

Whatever had happened, Tom would never tell me what it was really about. That was the first time I remembered punishing him.

You can't understand how coldly he glared at me.


	3. Chapter 3 Meeting Dumbledore

Chapter 3. Meeting Dumbledore

The snow continued to fall but the rays of sun beamed through the clouds.

"Everything changed after that professor visited", Mrs Cole said with a half-happy sigh. "Things stopped disappearing, the amount of odd accidents decreased." She twiddled her wedding ring. She never stopped wearing it though her husband had been long gone.

"You waited for the September to come and the closer it got the more often I caught you smiling alone in the front stairs."

* * *

August 1938, London, Wool's Orphanage.

In the beginning of the autumn of the year 1938 I had gotten a very formal letter from a man who I recall calling himself Albus Dumbledore. He had suggested a meeting, writing he wanted to meet Tom Riddle.

I was scared the couple who had considered adopting Dorothy had believed the story about Tom hanging Billy's rabbit and that the rumour had found the ears of the man.

I had accepted his letter anyway, and in the response I asked him to come to the orphanage two weeks later.

* * *

"Mrs Cole!"

I heard Hannah calling me from the hall. "I'm coming!" I wiped my hands on my apron and hurried from the kitchen. Dorothy, fifteen at the time, rushed after me.

"… and take the iodine upstairs to Martha", I said to her and handed a small bottle. "Billy Stubbs has been picking his scabs and Eric Whalley's oozing all over his sheets – chicken pox on top of everything else."

Dorothy took the bottle and went upstairs. I stopped to meet a man at the hall. He was old, older than me at least, and he was wearing a rather eccentric plum-coloured suit and his hat on his left hand.

"Good evening", the man said. He reached his hand to meet mine but I didn't take it. "My name's Albus Dumbledore. I sent you a letter", he continued. Yes, I remembered. He had sent me a letter and I had asked him to come today. I had completely forgotten that.

I asked Mr Dumbledore to come my room and he followed me. I beckoned nervously the stool on the other side of my desk. "Please, sit down."

He didn't waste time. When he had sat he crossed his hands over his knees and looked at me. "I'm here to, as I told you in my letter, to talk about Tom Riddle and his future." His tone worried me, made me nervous.

I asked if he was related to Tom but he denied it, telling he was a professor. He said he was offering Tom a place in his school.

"What kind of school it is?" I asked.

"Its name is Hogwarts", that man, Dumbledore replied, and I frowned lightly. I had never heard of a school by that name. It couldn't be in London, at least.

"And why are you interested in Tom?"

"We believe that he has certain abilities we're looking for."

I was dumbfounded. "Do you mean he has gotten a scholarship?" I bombarded the man with questions as his answers didn't satisfy my needs until he gave me a piece of paper.

I read it once, I read it twice. Everything seemed to be okay but I felt so confused. Who would want to offer a mere orphan a scholarship? In addition, offering it to Tom who was, of course, very intelligent, but many other children would have deserved a place at a school more than him. And I was afraid to let him leave the orphanage.

I glanced at the side table. I didn't remember having a bottle of gin there but Martha had probably bought it and brought here. It couldn't hurt to offer a drink to the professor. After the first glass he allowed me to fill his glass again.

"I was wondering whether you could tell me anything of Tom Riddle's history?" he asked. "I think he was born here in the orphanage?"

"That's right." I filled my own glass as well. "I remember it clear as anything, because I'd just started here myself. New Year's Eve and bitter cold, snowing, you know. Nasty night." I shivered because of the memory. I looked at Dumbledore, in case if he still was listening. He was and I continued. "And this girl, not much older than I was myself at the time, came staggering up the front steps. Well, she wasn't the first. We took her in, and she had the baby within the hour. And she was dead in another hour."

I silenced for a moment, letting what I had told to sink in. I hadn't really told about what had happened that night to anyone else but Martha. Louisa had been there but she was gone now. I nodded at him and sipped a mouthful of gin.

"Did she say anything before passing away?" Dumbledore asked. "About the boy's father, perhaps?"

I smiled, rather widely I might add. I could say it was because the alcohol, or because for once someone was willing to hear that story. Nevertheless Dumbledore seemed genuinely interested.

"I remember she said to me 'I hope he looks like his papa', and I won't lie she was right to hope it, because she was no beauty, and then she told me he was to be named Tom, for his father, and Marvolo, _for her_ father – yes, I know, funny name, isn't it? We wondered whether she came from a circus." The possibility that his mother was from a circus was something I never had told Tom. I looked at Dumbledore who merely raised a brow.

"And she said the boy's surname was to be Riddle. And she died soon after that without another word."

I also told Dumbledore that no Tom or Marvolo or Riddle or any other relative ever came to look for the boy. I smiled slightly. "He's a very peculiar boy."

"Yes." Dumbledore said with a nod. "That's what I thought."

"Even as a baby he rarely cried." I didn't mention how I had thought it to be a good sign. I didn't mention how bad mother I felt now. Maybe he would have needed more comfort as a small child? If I had been with him more, noticing him more then maybe… Perhaps if I had been less strict and hadn't raised my voice so often… I frowned, shaking my head.

"And when he grew up he became… a little weird."

Dumbledore smiled gently and asked how I found him weird. I felt myself ashamed of even saying so. I swallowed. "Well, he–" I stopped abruptly and inquiringly gazed at him. "Did you say that he most certainly has a place in your school?"

Dumbledore nodded. "Absolutely."

"And nothing what I say can change that?" How would I dare to do anything to risk the possibility given to Tom by talking too much?

"Nothing can change that", Dumbledore said.

"You'll take him away, whatever happens?" I asked half-hopefully.

"I'll take him whatever happens", he said sternly, very seriously. I looked at him and something in that man told me to trust him. That it would be good for Tom to go with him, or at least talk with him.

I took a deep breath. I felt like I would have to tell Mr Dumbledore everything. "He scares the other children", I said.

"You mean he is a bully?" Dumbledore asked.

I frowned. "I think he must be, but it's very hard to catch him at it." Had I even tried hard enough? Had I let those things happen? "There have been incidents… Nasty things…" I took another sip of gin as an encouragement. I had never been a very courageous person.

I told Mr Dumbledore about Billy Stubbs' pet rabbit and nervously continued to tell him about the trip to the seaside and how oddly Amy and Dennis had acted after it. Just exploring, Tom had said. "And well, all kinds of weird things…"

I didn't mention Louisa's piano, or things moving from their places and disappearing completely. I couldn't even say a word about James telling me that he had heard Tom speaking to a snake before Eric had gotten bit. I looked at Mr Dumbledore. "I don't think that many here would be offended by Tom leaving."

"But you do understand that we won't keep him entirely", Dumbledore said firmly. "He would have to return for the summers."

* * *

I took Mr Dumbledore to upstairs to meet Tom. How Tom would react on meeting the man I didn't know. I knocked the door of Tom's room couple times before opening it. Tom was sitting on his bed, reading like he often did. Few years back I was so proud when he expressed his interested in books. I couldn't know he would preferably stay in his room and read than spend time with the other children outdoors.

"Tom, you have a visitor." I beckoned the man in the doorway. "This is Mr Dumberton – I'm sorry, Dunderbone." The gin was whisking in my head. "He's here to tell – or let him tell you himself."

Mr Dumbledore entered the room and I gave the boy a smile before closing the door and leaving them alone. I leaned to the door and inhaled deeply. I granted them a little privacy and went to downstairs. Yet I couldn't help but wonder what they were currently talking about.

After half an hour I found Mr Dumbledore from the hall. He took his hat and bowed lightly before opening the front door. "Goodbye, Mrs Cole", he said and I just nodded at him. He didn't tell me anything he had talked about with Tom. He just left.

But at the dinner, when I looked at Tom, I couldn't believe what I saw. The difference wasn't major but somehow Tom seemed happier.

So much happier it scared me.


	4. Chapter 4 School Years

Chapter 4. School Years

May 1998, London, Sheltered Home for the Aged.

Finally the snowing stopped. Mrs Cole staggered to other side of the small room. She had spared a bottle of fine gin for a special day. She poured with trembling hands a glass for herself and sat back to her rocking chair, wrapping the blanket tighter around herself. The cold breeze had found its way inside from the window's cracks but the alcohol had a warming effect on the old lady.

"You had wanted to get your school supplies by yourself", she muttered and took a large sip of gin, even though she couldn't hold it like when she had been younger. "You hadn't even allowed anyone to accompany you on that windy September when day left to the King's Cross Station."

The glass was empty, and soon the bottle was only half-full.

"Now that I think about that then perhaps I probably should have gone with you." Mrs Cole hiccupped. "You never told anything what had happened at school when you came back for summertime and the longer you studied there – the older you got – the more introverted you became. Polite you were, even more than before, but once in a while I think you on purpose let me see through your façade. I would have wanted to see that side from you more often."

She smiled faintly. "That you were still just a little boy."

* * *

September 1941, London, Wool's Orphanage.

It was quite early in the morning. Most children were still sleeping; to them the first of September was just another day of the year. I was in the kitchen, drinking tea and waiting. I knew Tom would come downstairs soon. He wouldn't want to miss the train. It would be his fourth year already.

"Good morning, Tom", I said when I from the corner of my eye saw the young man entering the kitchen. He had already taller than me, and I didn't consider myself very short, and handsome, too. I wondered if he was popular in school. Here, no matter how much he had changed, he was still avoided. Poor Amy couldn't even stay in the same room with him without certain difficulties.

Tom looked at me before replying ever so politely and sitting down. "Morning."

He poured a cup of tea to himself and the kitchen fell into silence. Tom wasn't very talkative. I suspected it was right time to give him his present. We, here in the orphanage, rarely had money for anything pretentious

I hold out a regular book with neutral black covers. It was a diary; I had bought it from Vauxhall Road last Thursday. Tom didn't take it. Instead he glanced at me mistrustfully.

I frowned lightly and urged him to take it. "It's for you."

Tom gave one of his small, polite smiles. "Thank you."

He took the diary at last and placed it in front of himself on the table. I saw him eyeing it suspiciously. But after all, there had been an unusual, slightest hint of honesty in his voice. I don't think he liked being in the orphanage but I wanted him to at least find it tolerable.

I suggested him to write down all the good things. He snorted at the idea then but I saw him after his return writing to it several times. He never left it anywhere.

* * *

June 1943, London, Wool's Orphanage.

When Tom came back for the summer holiday he was acting very differently than before. Instead of locking himself up into his room like he usually did – no one could ask him any questions of that private school he attended when he did so – he went to his room and packed everything he would need for a short trip.

When I asked him about it, he told me he had found out where his mother had lived and, as he was very curious about his heritage and family history, he had decided to travel there, in case if he could find any of her living relatives. He asked if he could leave for a while.

I gave my permission to that, and I was sure that even if I hadn't given my permission, Tom would have left that day. His eyes had been filled so full of cold determination when he had asked the permission. He was often like 'no' wasn't an option, had been since he was a little. I didn't forget things like that. He was commanding, and he didn't like being opposed. I think that's why he and Billy never learnt to get along.

* * *

I had expected him to stay with his mother's family a little longer but instead he came back the very next day during the dinner. I automatically considered he hadn't found anything. Why else would he have returned already?

"You're back already?" I asked, meeting him at the hall. He merely grunted at me and I frowned a little at his antics. "Did you find your mother's family?"

He ignored me but his right hand automatically moved over his left. There – I caught a glimpse of it – on his finger, was a ring. In my eyes it didn't look anything special but judging from Tom's reaction it must have been something significant. A family heirloom, perhaps? So he would have found his relatives. Were they so bad he didn't want to talk about them?

I was about to ask him about it but he turned around and glared at me.

"I don't want to talk about it!" he hissed, or more likely roared. "It has nothing to do with you, _muggle_!"

I heard someone dropping a glass in the kitchen. Tom never yelled, never raised his voice. And even though I couldn't understand the last word, from his face I could tell it was meant to be an insult. A terrible insult to be exact.

I froze immediately, retreating towards the nearest wall, my eyes widening in shock. There had been a gleam, like a flare, in his eyes before he swiftly regained his usual composure and calm demeanour. He turned his back at me and marched upstairs. I flinched at the sound of the door being slammed shut.

Martha came from the kitchen and hugged me tightly. "Oh dear", she said.

I didn't know where the tears had come from.

* * *

June 1945, London, Wool's Orphanage.

Seven years were over. Tom had graduated from that special school of his and returned back to the orphanage but this time not just for summer.

I couldn't sleep for some reason. I tossed and turned in my bed before finally giving up sleeping and getting up from my bed. A cup of warm milk, that would do the trick. I lit a candle and walked down the stairs. At the hall I halted for few seconds.

"Tom?"

I shook my head a little and went to him, placing my hand on his shoulder. If I hadn't recognized him – if I hadn't known it was him – I would have approached him so carelessly. I should have known Tom wouldn't stay here another day if he wouldn't have to. He had attempted to leave the building in the dead of night when no one would notice.

"Where are you going now?" I asked quietly but in the silent house my voice sounded like a scream. And scream I would have wanted. Scream and tell him to go back to his room.

But there I stood, in my nightgown in the middle of the night, in front of Tom Riddle. The young man didn't falter; he was standing there, tall and calculating. His dark eyes were cold as ice and the flickering candle light didn't honour his handsome features. It was like the boy I had raised for eighteen years wasn't there at all.

"That's none of your business", he hissed rather harshly and pulled the hood on his head. He opened the door, held his hand on the handle, and stood there for a moment. And during that moment he was once again the little boy I knew in my heart.

"Goodbye, Mrs Cole."

The last words sunk in after he was gone and I sunk to my knees. I just stared blankly into the dimly lit street. After these years, if a woman could be sure of anything, I was sure that I most probably wouldn't see Tom ever again.

And would it, after all, be such a bad thing?


	5. Chapter 5 Return

Chapter 5. Return

July 1969, London, Wool's Orphanage.

It was a breezy summer night, Saturday, if I remember correctly. I was in the living room, sitting on a rocking chair, humming and knitting socks for Emily. Martha was there too; she was reading a book aloud for Arthur and the twins, Jeremy and Katy. When we heard a knock from the door I stood up, leaving the unfinished pair of socks to the side table.

I went to the front door and opened it, expecting to see Dorothy as she still visited the orphanage though she had moved away several years ago.

My eyes widened in surprise.

At the door wasn't Dorothy but one of my other orphans.

Yes, the man who I saw was identifiably Tom Riddle; he couldn't go unrecognized because of his dark eyes. Yes, I remembered those eyes all too well. His smile was the same too; tight-lipped, not reaching his eyes. Never really reaching his eyes.

But he had aged too much in the past years. He was thinner than I remembered – reminded me strongly of his mother – and his skin was wax-like and bleak, making his cheekbones more prominent and not in a good way. I noticed he didn't wear the ring anymore.

But what caught my attention wasn't Tom's changed appearance but his companion.

With Tom was a younger woman, a girl she was in my eyes. She was tall, yes, and quite beautiful – long black hair framing her pale face, heavily-lidded eyes with long eyelashes, and thin lips forming a displeased pout. She seemed too young to be Tom's fiancée but I couldn't know for sure.

"What are we doing here, My Lord?" she asked Tom in a low hiss.

Tom glanced at her. "_Silence_, Bellatrix." The woman recoiled from him, bowing her head in submission. Not a fiancée then, I thought. Tom turned to face me, Martha, and the curious children who had came to see the visitors. I swiftly beckoned them to go back to living room.

"Mrs Cole", Tom said, his tone eerily polite, gaining my attention.

"Tom", I answered as politely. He flinched at the name.

The woman glared at me murderously. "How dare you–?"

Tom silenced her with a look. "I suggest we take this outside", Tom said, looking at me for a slit second and opened the door. "Not you, Bellatrix", he added as the woman was about to follow us. She reluctantly stayed back and instead leaned to the doorframe, watching my every movement like a hawk.

"Who was the woman with you?" I asked as I tried to start a polite conversation with the man I hadn't seen in over twenty years.

Tom laughed. "As much as I know it's none of your concern", he said with a haughty smile. He acted like the question I had asked was completely ridiculous. "Bellatrix is merely a companion. No need to worry about her now."

I crossed my arms. "Why are you here then, Tom?" I asked firmly.

His gaze hardened. "Quit using _that_ name", he hissed through his teeth before the smile returned to his face. "My reasons are beyond your understanding, Mrs Cole", he said in a tone I couldn't quite place. "But there is one thing you should do…"

I gaped at Tom after he had finished telling me his suggestion. That sort of thing to ask... I shook my head weakly.

"No, I can't do such thing", I said as firmly as I could but my voice trembled. I was shocked of what he had said. "If you had nothing else to say…"

Tom's smile didn't waver. "No, I have not. That was everything. The choice is all yours." He glanced at the door. "Come on, Bellatrix."

The woman pranced to his side, shooting me a disdainful but curious look as she passed me at the pathway. I took it as Tom hadn't told her why they were here.

I marched back inside and locked the door. There was no way, no way, I would do such thing.

* * *

But after three days, when I was looking at the space where once stand an orphanage and where now were only smoking ruins, I felt miserable. They said it was arson but no real evidence to prove it. It was like the flaming had started from nowhere.

Tom had told me this would happen. He had told me to leave the building. And I had ignored him. Poor old Martha, two boys and a tiny girl hadn't made it out in time but had died in that fire, I had barely gotten the rest out safely. Eleven children had lost their place to live that night. And not just that.

We had lost our home.

It didn't take even a month when I found out the city would never reconstruct the orphanage. They had instead decided to build offices, a whole block of offices, in place of it. They had planned for it for years, I heard, so I and the children lived in a rented two-room apartment until they had gotten themselves new homes from other orphanages and adoptive families. It took longer than I would have hoped for.

But after all, I didn't know should I be angry to the city, to Tom, or to myself.

And I ended up being mad at myself.

* * *

1998, London, Sheltered Home for the Aged.

A lone, stray snowflake descended to Mrs Cole's windowsill and melted away in the instant the sun's first rays found it. Mrs Cole wasn't angry to herself anymore. She hadn't been in years. She has too little years left for that.

But what she now knew better was never to underestimate Tom Riddle. Though she hadn't seen him after that evening, she was sure she felt him. It was like a premonition, or a warning, or sometimes just a memory like it was today.

It made her think that maybe she hadn't been a bad mother and Tom hadn't been a bad son. They just never understood one another. She gave a weak smile.

"How are you today, Tom?" Mrs Cole asked aloud, gazing into the blue sky. "Do you see the snow falling?"

There is no answer. There is never an answer no matter how much she wishes for it.

Mrs Cole smiles sadly. The bottle of gin is empty and the snow on her windowsill is gone as well. Just a memory.

"That's too bad…"

* * *

A/N: Aaand it's done. I've always liked Tom Riddle. I don't find him evil. He had a poor start, he made bad choices, and he was afraid. If Merope hadn't died right after he was born things could have gone very differently. But hey, this was my third Harry Potter fic, and the first challenge I've ever taken part in. Reviews are appreciated!

Here's the list of Parental Figure Challenge events and personal prompts I used:

Chapter 1.

EVENT: childbirth; Merope gave birth to Tom.

EVENT: marriage (implied); Mrs Cole had a wedding ring on her finger though her husband is dead. She also mentions it would be soon their third anniversary.

CHAPTER 2.

PROMPT: earworm; Tom got an earworm after listening Louisa playing Beethoven's _Für Elise_.

EVENT: picnic (implied); They were going to have a picnic at the seaside but it's unknown did it get cancelled because Tom, Amy, and Dennis were missing.

EVENT: parental punishment (implied); Mrs Cole punishes Tom, and possibly Amy and Dennis too, from wandering too far.

CHAPTER 3.

PROMPT: courage; Mrs Cole mentions she's not very courageous person when having a conversation with Dumbledore.

CHAPTER 4.

PROMPT: history; Tom is interested in his family history which is why he leaves in the first place to look for his mother's relatives.

EVENT: argument; It's actually quite one-sided argument since Mrs Cole can't really say anything to raging Tom but I find it an argument nevertheless.

EVENT: goodbye; Pretty much self-explanatory – Tom says goodbye to Mrs Cole and leaves the orphanage.

CHAPTER 5.

PROMPT: out of character; Tom – I mean Voldemort – returns to the orphanage which is something what he would never do.

PROMPT: too bad; The last words Mrs Cole says.


End file.
